Somerset veteran revealed as benefactor for town's World War II memorial

Sunday

May 25, 2014 at 11:37 PMMay 26, 2014 at 12:12 AM

When he died six months ago at age 95, Stephen D. Sypko left his legacy as a World War II veteran who saw action on the Beach of Normandy and at the Battle of the Bulge.

Michael Holtzman Herald News Staff Reporter @MDHoltzman

SOMERSET — When he died six months ago at age 95, Stephen D. Sypko left his legacy as a World War II veteran who saw action on the Beach of Normandy and at the Battle of the Bulge.

He returned from the war with a Purple Heart. And when he returned to Somerset, a town that saw nearly a fifth of its 5,100 residents, including 23 women, serve in World War II, Sypko did far more than most to ensure their military service would be honored and remembered.

In front of the Somerset Public Library on County Street, the names of those 957 servicemen and -women are listed one by one on both sides of a majestic granite wall. Nearby, offset by more than 1,000 engraved red bricks that individual citizens bought to memorialize loved ones, a granite pentagonal obelisk lists the branches of U.S. military service and the Somerset fallen from each branch in World War II: 13 in the Army, seven in the Navy, four in the Air Force, one Marine and the Coast Guard without a fatality. Twenty-five in all.

It is on ground level, below the memorialized shaft, within the granite base, that just last week an essential inscription was added:

“Dedicated soldier and friend. Staff Sgt. Stephen D. Sypko, 12-29-1917 — 11-12-2013. His generous contributions carry on throughout our community even to this day,” it reads.

When he died last Nov. 12 — 12 years to the day this monument was dedicated — Somerset residents first learned it was Sypko who paid, anonymously, for this memorial to those that served the country in the military.

And over the years, he donated generously and regularly to the Veterans of Foreign Wars, the American Legion and AmVets Post in Somerset, all anonymously, said Edmund Lima, who was the veterans agent and town treasurer for nearly two decades until a few years ago.

“This is the agreement I had with him,” said Lima. “He told me in no uncertain terms not to tell.

“We left it blank.”

“Steve didn’t want his name on the monument until he passed on,” said Donald Truver, commander of VFW Post 8500 in Somerset. “He was a very humble man.”

Truver said the same of Sypko’s wife of 66 years, Vera (Kosco) Sypko, who also sought no publicity, even for this story. The private family has a niece and nephew who live in town.

“He was the type of person,” said the elderly Lima, standing in a pressed suit beside the memorials on Friday with Truver and Veterans Agent Heather Cheetham, “who looked around and saw the needs of people.

“One of the first he saw was the needs of veterans,” Lima recollected. “He was a soldier. He went through some tough battles. He came home from the war and looked around.”

What Sypko also saw, Lima said, was a close-knit small town made of residents that loved their country, many of whom were buddies that went to war together, some who did not return.

Over the years, he became a highly successful business man, owning a car dealership, a dry cleaning business and a real estate company. He acquired tracts of land in town.

When these memorials were dedicated and the first hundreds of bricks engraved on Nov. 12, 2001, Lima announced that he was asked by the anonymous donor to coordinate this remembrance. Lima said in the program booklet that he considered it a privilege.

This year, after Sypko’s recent passing, the annual essay contest for Somerset students was called the “Stephen D. Sypko Memorial Day Essay Contest.”

Samantha Coray, a daughter of Bruce and Melissa Coray, was named the winner and will read her essay at the ceremonies that conclude the Memorial Day parade and celebration at the VFW Post today.

Coray recalled in her writing the 58,000 dead and missing soldiers named on the unforgettable Vietnam Memorial in Washington D.C. That at the WW II memorial, 4,048 stars cover the wall, each honoring 100 fallen American soldiers.

“We honor these heroes in memorials because their memory, their legacy, their bravery deserves to be noted,” the Somerset Middle School student wrote.

The kindred spirit of Army Staff Sgt. Stephen Sypko must be saluting from somewhere on high.